


Love Ridden

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Closet [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Exes, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Oz Never Left, Post-Episode: s04e19 New Moon Rising, Secret Relationship, Secrets, old fic, some proofreading we die liek mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 22:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: “It just doesn’t make a girl happy when she comes home from a long night of slaying to find her secret boyfriend drooling over her roomie, his ex.”





	Love Ridden

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably better rated T+ for suggested suggestiveness. 
> 
> Written about 10 years ago; edited for clarity with the content largely unchanged.

Oz stiffened as he sensed a presence behind him, then relaxed when his nose told him who it was.

“Oz…what’re you doing?” Buffy’s voice was barely audible. Her hand touched his shoulder, thumb rubbing in circles around the bony edge.

“Staring at Willow,” he answered in kind.

“I can see that.” She lightly pinched his upper arm then her hand was in motion again. “But _why_ are you staring at Willow?”

He didn’t answer her. Didn’t want to answer her.

“Oz.”

His eyes didn’t move and he had nothing to say.

Her hand stilled. He could smell salt when she asked him, “Do you still…? Do you love her?”

“I was looking for you, actually,” he said softly. “I was looking for you but you weren’t here. Willow was—”

“So this is my fault?”

“—here instead,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “and I just got…stuck. Here. Looking at her.”

“Because I wasn’t here.”

“No. No, Buffy.” He turned to look at her. “Because Willow’s still in here. Deep in here and it… I don’t know. But if I stand still too long there’s a part of me that…” He didn’t want to say it. He and Buffy had been friends a long time, but they weren’t friends anymore. And he didn’t know that what they were now could survive what he and Willow had been before.

“There’s a part of you that belongs to her. And it always will.”

Oz dropped his eyes.

“I…I understand.” Oz could hear the frown in her voice as her hand began to move on his arm again. “I don’t like it. Hate it actually. But I understand. There’s part of me that will always—”

Willow shifted on the bed, turning away from the nearly sub-vocal conversation toward the window.

“Like I was saying, there’s a part of me that will always belong to Angel. Y’know. First love and all that crap.”

Oz nodded, eyes still focused on a point somewhere beyond her right side.

“But you didn’t answer my question.”

He looked up, frowning. “What question?”

“Do you still love her? Willow. Do you still love Willow?”

He thought about it. The quick answer was Yes. Part of him always would. But the quick answer was also No. The rift between them was too complete, too deep. And Willow didn’t seem to be affected by it at all. Not anymore.

“Sometimes.”

Buffy laughed silently. “There might be a little too much honesty in this relationship.”

Catching her hand where it was still moving on his arm, he stopped her. “Buffy I—”

She shook her head. “I know. I think I know. I just…” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her free hand. “It just doesn’t make a girl happy when she comes home from a long night of slaying to find her secret boyfriend drooling over her roomie, his ex.”

Oz smiled. “I wasn’t drooling.”

“Are you sure? After a while when you’re staring, your face gets numb. You can’t really feel the—”

He kissed her hand. “I was stuck. But I wasn’t drooling.”

“If you say so.”

He pulled her close. “I do.”

They stared at each other for long moments, the sound of their breathing and Willow’s breathing competing with the whirring of their minds.

Oz broke the silence. “I can’t stay here.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow.

“It’s better with you here but—”

“I can help you forget.”

Oz frowned. “Buffy, I thought we decided that we weren’t—”

“We did. We totally did. But give a girl a little credit.” She brought their joined hands to her mouth, pressing the space where their palms met to her lips, and the back of his hand to her cheek. “ ‘Sides, I’ve got to free you from the clutches of an evil witch.”

 

* * *

“Hey Willow, come look.”

Brush in hand, Willow followed the trail of long blue braids flashing in the corner of her eyes out of her room, down the hall and into the common room. She tried to move quietly. It was ridiculously early, particularly for a Saturday, but she and her lab-mates were trying to get into the lab before either the grad students or the other ambitious undergrads got there. They’d already learned from experience that that was pretty doggone early.

“What is it, Tivvy?” Willow called out in her best stage whisper. “I’m almost ready to go.”

“Look at the two of them.” The Black girl flipped her electric blue braids over her shoulder, nearly catching Willow across the face. Luckily it was a regular habit and Willow ducked, also out of habit. “Aren’t they cute? I found them like that but with the still television on.”

Willow’s face broke into apoplexies of adorableness. “They _are_ cute! It looks like they fell over while they were watching TV last night!”

“And Oz landed on Buffy’s hip.”

They stood around cooing until their other lab partner got them moving again.

“It’s a nice hip,” Oz murmured softly. Most of the floor was still sleeping.

“Don’t get too comfortable down there,” Buffy muttered back. “My arm’s asleep.”

Oz grunted. “That’s my fault.” He shifted and used his free hand to lever himself up with. He loosened the grip he had on Buffy’s hand.

Her fingers quickly tightened around his palm. “I meant this one,” Buffy said, eyebrows slowly climbing as she indicated the arm she had fallen asleep on with a nod. “That arm…that arm is perfectly fine.”

“It’s red and it has shirt-lines on it.”

“Uh huh.”

“And it’s flushed and sweaty.”

“Sure is.”

“And it’s at an awkward angle.”

“I’ve heard that’s the best kind.” Buffy pulled on Oz’s hand. He fell into her so that his head was on his shoulder. “That’s not really what I envisioned.”

Oz smiled.

“Y’know if you hadn’t fallen asleep at exactly the right angle, we’d have some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Nodding against her rumpled shirt, he said, “I know.”

“How long do you think we can keep this a secret? How long do you want to?”

“I’m good for as long as you are, Buff.”

She craned her neck to look over at him. “Really? ‘Cause I think if a guy asked me to be his girlfriend and then asked me not to tell any of our friends I’d be (a) a little suspicious and (2) a little hurt. Which is not why—”

“I understand. It’s not ideal but…” He shrugged. “I can wait.”

Smiling, Buffy shook her head and turned away. “You are the strangest person, Oz. You know that?”

“Even on the Hellmouth?”

“Especially on a Hellmouth.”

“Although technically I guess I’m not a person anymore…”

Buffy snorted. Loudly. She looked him in the eye. “Then neither am I. I say we catch some real Z’s in a real bed. Come back to the room with me? No way Willow will be back before eleven. That’s, what, four or five uninterrupted hours? No one else will come up this way either. The one thing Giles has been really good about since I got this crazy schedule is letting me sleep in whenever I can. What do you say?”

Nothing, in true Oz fashion. But Buffy was used to it and let him think.

“Last night was fun—”

“But…”

“—and it worked. Just wait until the next big Chess Day at Giles’ place.”

“What big Chess Day?”

“But I don’t think this is a good idea. Me. You. Two beds and several hours to kill.”

Buffy waggled her eyes. “Several hours, huh?”

Giving her a small shake of his head, Oz brought their hands up to his mouth and breathed over their linked fingers. “I’d love to stay, Buff, and I’m tired enough to think that all we’d actually do is sleep. But we can’t sleep forever. And you, by yourself with no distractions, are too tempting.”

“That’s got to be one of the best let downs ever. You just told me no, and yet I feel dangerously sexy.”

“You are dangerously sexy.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Gratuitous compliments not needed.”

“And not given.”

“O-oz.”

He stood, pulling Buffy up with him. He brought her close. “Someday it will all be right. Telling the gang. Us. You’ll just know. We both will.”

“Think so?”

He smiled. “Hope so.”

She threw her arms around him. He could almost feel words welling up in her chest but, just as he was, she seemed to push them back down before they could make it out of her mouth. “Night, Oz.”

“Night, Buffy.” He pulled away. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“Ha. If only.”

 

Fin[ite]


End file.
